


Uncertain Way

by yuletide_archivist



Category: The Sandman (Comics)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-24
Updated: 2008-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:37:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1631957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dream who is Daniel does not need to know more about the circumstances that led to Morpheus' death and a new Dream.  Daniel who was once human, though, does, and seeks to find why one of the beings involved behaved as he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uncertain Way

**Author's Note:**

> To the recipient: it is unfortunate than when one is pinch-hitting one may find difficulty making the exact request work. While this does not cover all the things in your request, I hope I've managed to present a story that is enjoyable. I am not sure I answered any of the questions that you wanted, but sometimes it's better to leave the questions open and be given possibilities instead. I hope you still enjoy it.
> 
> Written for Azpidistra

 

 

It is the nature of reality that some places are open only to certain sorts of beings. Mortals know it best, especially humans; silly little bipeds live out their lives in (mostly) linear fashion, trapped by their hearts and flesh and disbelief. It is why mortals, of all types of beings, most often dream of creatures unlike themselves, creatures who can do and see and be things locked away from humanity.

Mortals know it best, but that does not mean that they are the only ones cut off from some corners of existence or ways of being or are bound into laws of life. Immortals tend to try and pretend that it isn't so, especially those who have felt superior watching humans live out their short lives, and the eternals accept the matter while not giving it thought unless there is true need.

Sometimes there is. Sometimes stories might end better if the beings in them realized this sooner, if they tried to break the rules that bound them to their endings.

The truth is that most beings, even immortal ones, are reluctant to break rules. Especially those who know the price of doing so.

There are, of course, always rebels. Sometimes that works out for the best, and the young lord rescues his lady love from Death without handing his own life over in turn. Sometimes it means that the villain is able to walk out of his prison and shut the door behind him with no concern for the future.

And sometimes it ends very, very badly. And then there is nothing to do but recover, pick up your life (which may be brand new) and learn how to go forward, even if it requires knowing more of the past.

***

He who was Daniel and is Dream, he who remembers being Morpheus while never being such himself, is one who can and may walk along most all roads that exist. There are exceptions, mostly those that are the ones his siblings travel, the roads without stones that he may only walk on if he does so by their sides.

Most roads kept from him are those of the Family. But here, too, there are exceptions, and the path the Dream King walks along is not so much _old_ as _always_. Always has been, always will be, bound to something from the blink of an eye before Destiny was, and the stones crumble into dust beneath his feet.

Daniel does not need to glance back to know they are reforming behind him. He stares straight ahead, silent except for when Tethys, perched on his shoulder and ruffling white feathers as they travel, asks a question. Then he gives a response, shortly and softly, and continues on.

It is not a way that he can travel, normally, but it is a gift, of sorts. Daniel is very young, in some ways, and the part of him that remembers being small and human and having a mother also wonders at the people who helped him change. The part that is Endless, the greater part, knows all of this and has no need of this visit.

Daniel who was human does, however, and the Kindly Ones can, in fact, be kind. When it suits them. The Endless Dream is wary of the consequences of this that might occur; Daniel is too curious to not continue. Loki was easier to visit, Odin's permission barely needed and asked only out of courtesy; Daniel had learned more from his screams than he could have from words.

They are nowhere, and then there are in a cavern, the walls made of rough blank slate. Tethys shifts, uncomfortably, and Daniel says nothing as he approaches the figure in the center of the room. It is sitting in an arm chair, another chair empty next to it, and is humanoid and human not, small and lithe and neither male nor female. Dark hair like moss hangs about its face, and Dream is reminded of his own reflection, one point of view ago, and of Desire, and of an ancient tree.

He does not recognize the creature, though he studies it for a while before saying, "I was told to find Robin Goodfellow here."

It smiled, except for the fact that its lips never moved, and answered, "No. You _asked_ for him. You were told you'd find answers."

This is true, and so Daniel inclines his head in acknowledgement and settles, at the being's gesture, in the empty chair. Tethys shifts a few times before settling on the winged arm of the chair, and Endless eyes like stars meet eyes that look like nothing so much as air.

"I wish to know more of Puck."

"Do you really? How curious." It smiles, and Daniel is not sure whether to be annoyed or smile back. He is not so foolish as to snap or be rude--not in this place to this person, or something like one--and yet the part of him that expected a life measured in decades instead of an existence of eternity has yet to learn patience.

It is an intriguing experience, in some ways, and he is both reluctant and eager to someday speak to Despair and ask if she felt the same. But that thought is not for now.

"I know his being. His nature. I know his actions. I know his dreams. But his feelings, his reasoning, are hidden from me."

It--Dream knows the title of the creature, the being, but he cannot speak it and knows reality well enough to not ask for a name--pulls legs up into the chair, folding into itself as if making an origami crane from paper, and watches him. "There is a Wise One who often has told mortals that they are told no stories but their own. The point to it, though, has always been that one must listen and learn one's own story. However one can. It is a gift of sorts for mortals, with so little time in life to learn their own natures. But you, Dream King--you are Endless. You are Dream. You are defined and known. What matter is it to you why Puck did as he did?"

There is silence between them before Daniel answers, "I have always been Dream, but once I was only mortal. I am Daniel, but not that I was; I wish to know the story that was the mortal Daniel's before there was the Dream Daniel."

It nods, and Dream thinks it looks thoughtful. Rising, it walks towards a doorway that was not there a moment ago, gesturing for Dream to follow, Tethys on his shoulder again.

They are in woods, in a place that was existences away and green and alive, watching a mass of people--not all human, not near it--perform in and watching what appears to be a play. None of them see any of the three, not the Endless nor the raven nor the thing that looks almost female, now, skin the color and pattern of a birch tree's bark.

When it--and it's an it again, feminine features roughened out to something neutral--speaks, it's with a lilt that makes it near singing. "He is of the fair folk, and it is his nature to steal children. You were merely one other, unimportant in and of yourself. The hobgoblin was lonely and bored. He was paid forty pieces of silver and forty tankards of ale to do so by the friend of a man that Morpheus cursed to eternal nightmare. Loki wanted to use you and bring about Ragnarok, and Puck loved him enough to help take the child, if not enough to protect Loki. Lucifer threatened them to until they did so, planning his revenge on Dream over years. Someone who once loved your mother sobbed over it to Loki in a bar, and the idea of revenge in such a way delighted him. Because Destiny instructed them to, knowing that Daniel could do what Morpheus could not. Because the Kindly Ones were vicious and detailed in their justice. Because you should have been born years before you were, and Order demanded that Puck correct the snag in the fabric. Because."

There is nothing but the sound of a wood in a land not yet industrialized and the sound of the play, the words familiar while yet unclear.

Daniel is Dream, is the point of it all, and Dream knows that every answer he was just given is true. The small mortal boy he was would want the one answer, the perfect one, and he is not that boy any longer.

He knows there is no one answer that is more true than all the others, and he knows that he has been told more truth than he ever could have forced to come from Puck's mouth.

"Where is he?" is what Dream eventually asks, and the creature smiles at him again. 

"Away."

It is true, and so it is enough, and Dream nods once. When his chin rises again, he has heard the click of the door shutting; they are in the cavern again, in the center of a planet and a world and no where at all.

He bows once, slightly, to the creature who is in its chair again. "I thank you."

"You are welcome, Daniel." And then she says softly, no menace in her voice, "Leave now, Dream."

And so he does, Tethys still with him and the way crumbling beneath his feet and rebuilding itself anew. Daniel the human would be frustrated at knowing no more of Puck's mind than he already had.

Dream who is called Daniel knows that he knows all that matters, already, and that it is the nature of a trickster to be shadowed.

It is truth, and it is enough. 

 


End file.
